A Positive Brainstorming / Suggestion Box Thread - Ideas for Improving Second Life Sociability, Usability and Retention

[benchthis]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I want to go skateboarding.. Ok well first you have to do this ,then go get that, then learn how this works ,then if this happens you need to do this work around.. hehehe

At the same time, there are "free skateboards" out there to be had - just not necessarily easy to find.  

I wish SL was so user-friendly we could steal the young userbase from Roblox! (Not that Roblox makes money, or so I hear.)

I bring it up because, if Roblox (for example) is where the young people are going..then "let's do that", whatever "that" is..

Potentially Unpopular idea: Bring back the "Teen Grid"!

Not sure if the teen grid is needed, the teens are already here, they are hiding, as we all would be if we were teens.

I've dabbled with roblox just for like under 3 hours total but in a build area pretty cool people, one dude was showing off and built the theme to southpark. I still have no idea how he did it. They have all kinds of neat objects, things that you can stand on will move the avatar, like a people mover built into the object. They are making improvements to their avatars, they are becoming more realistic. If I had to recreate the magic I saw someone build in roblox that was fun that is common design used by others: It would be quarter of a region and around that region would be parcel sandboxes persay, once object is dropped area is claimed by the builder for so long and others may not build inside. Almost like a pod system for speed building, or casual building. As they are building they are teaching each other. It sounds like that is the way SL used to be. 

Please see the attached image. I modded the design. Also a problem for new users is, where do I live? I don't get a home for free. That's a deal breaker for kids, if your not giving them something to stay they are going to go somewhere else. This Pod system the garden info area in the center could also be a home location. 

I would not recommend a full region for this yet because having more space between would make it less social. maybe a couple in the pod the patterns some of them cannot be claimed and are open to all for anyone to use. The pod patterns can be different sizes and combos. I would try this pattern first. The areas could have different themes.  In a way this is morris ahern area but tweaked. I put roofing over the sandbox pods thinks the home would be the social info garden center of a pod. 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by benchthis

[Arielle Popstar]

Just now, benchthis said:

Not sure if the teen grid is needed, the teens are already here, they are hiding, as we all would be if we were teens.

They are the ones acting like adults.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

This certainly seems like some "low-hanging fruit" that would make a big difference!  I've seen several comments in this thread that "prims are dead" (seems a bit extreme, to me). 

I saw comments a lot during the Sansar ramp-up about Marvelous Designer - would that be "licensable" for Linden Lab to use?

Sure it's possible except...

LL would have to add MD's

$50 USD A MONTH

usage fee to your $99 a year premium subscription...

Add in the fact that MD makes the most awful over the top super hi poly, bad topology meshes you ever saw...

Excellent idea, really positive, increase subscriptions by 600% and increase lag by 600%.

[benchthis]

23 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

52 minutes ago, benchthis said:

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I want to go skateboarding.. Ok well first you have to do this ,then go get that, then learn how this works ,then if this happens you need to do this work around.. hehehe

You have to have degree in engineering to do that. 

A skateboard is a type of "vehicle" with usually, a certain animation pose.

There are probably free "skateboard scripts" out there, or wiki entries with vehicles that act like skateboards.

Of course, me being a scripter - I have to ask:

How would I make this easier for someone else?

Answer: Add an "Object Type" of "Vehicle", with a selection of "Vehicle type" (which is really different parameters on the Vehicle LSL script commands).  Then the Animation is the only thing left.

Just an idea..

Cool Idea! Now I want to make a prim cube vehicle

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea: While the "instancing" used in Sansar wasn't anything like the "always up" we get in Second Life, perhaps "instancing" (only "up/online when in use") would be something for "New user free homes"?  No Grid space taken up. Few resources used.

Or a "sub-sub-Premium" tier.

 

[benchthis]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Idea: While the "instancing" used in Sansar wasn't anything like the "always up" we get in Second Life, perhaps "instancing" (only "up/online when in use") would be something for "New user free homes"?  No Grid space taken up. Few resources used.

Or a "sub-sub-Premium" tier.

Like GTA5 has for their homes, or wow has for the garrison, pretty common. Cute official Linden town and everyone can pick where they live million people can pick the same house location if they like, once inside they are in another dimention but with the PBR remote reflection probes, being in another dimention could still look like your being in the town when you look out the window or stand on the porch, will still see the world live but be in the instance. If GTA5 had what SL has as far as live in world building and moding without having to go outside to an editor, it would be the holy grail of 3D worlds. That's the secret sauce. 

Currently the homes towns do feel lonely 1 person per region active is not optimal. 10 people active in a few hundrend region area is not optimal. 

Having something like the instance with remote viewing would make the world seem more active and less abandoned and would offer more privacy, more freedom to build without being judged by others and punished for breaking rules that are often hard to find and then being alienated and eventually leaving the world to find somewhere without virtual homeowner associations. 

It would be worth experimenting how something like this can work with existing linden home design. Vs having to design endless themes and regions for most of them to be empty claimed but empty. 

Attached is the Linden Home Fantasy theme. Out of the approx 250 full regions there are approx 44 active avatars, would say users but likely some are bots.  This area can host for housing approx 5000. but only 44. Sure it's a monday. When I explore most of the homes are not claimed. Something is off. Every theme is like that. The demand and usefulness continues to dwindle. Each of these themes needs a heart and community centers are not doing it. Likely sandboxes would help stop the bleeding. Even if they are sandboxes in side building, castle what ever so not to disturbe the residents whom never are home. 

To be able to house hope to any house (even occupied) at any time would be most optimal. To pair with that would be neat to have something built into the home controller that places a rez block down to capture and attach object on the parcel so it can be lifted up and easily placed to another parcel with same theme house. Maybe like appearances for avatar except them for homes, or something the home controller can place inside of our inventory home folder so other home controllers can recall that data. If we're able to search and find our ultimate dream home location, (even if it's taken) we're more likely to stick around.  

Edited February 13, 2023 by benchthis

[Istelathis]

With this talk of instancing and WoW garrisons I am reminded of an idea I had for SL borrowed from WoW, which was phasing.  It was not well received at the time, but I do enjoy thinking of it. 

WoW's phasing, which is described here:

https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Phasing

When I had brought it up I was thinking for an extra layer of privacy for SL land owners, as the discussion was regarding zero second security orbs and exploring SL.  The intention was that people would hopefully be less likely to use security orbs, if they had the ability to phase in and out of view as well as phase chat on their own land, in addition they could set a phase for the objects on their land.  It would likely be set to a group setting so that the people who they wanted to interact with would be able to do so by setting their active group to the correct one.

In this thread, it would likely have the opposite effect of socializing because it would be more of a privacy setting.  Although, I also reasoned that with phasing, people could make their own property progress through a storyline by having only certain objects appear depending on the stage they are on in the story itself.   As a tool for gaming, I reasoned that it would be a great one.

With phasing, in WoW at least and to the best of my understanding, the server only sends data to the client depending on the phase tag the player has set them to. So assets and other players who are of a different tag will occupy the same space, but be sent different data depending on what tag they are currently set to.  I would imagine this could be expanded upon to allow for huge group events much like it is done in WoW, so that one could possibly be in a region that extends beyond the typical constraints of the maximum number of avatars - which would make large concerts less of an issue as you could have the band set to a phase that is universally seen, and the audience being sent a data set that is not too demanding on other clients in the same area so their viewers are not overwhelmed by other participants.

I like the idea of private instances, sort of like temporary dimensional pockets that are generated when you enter them. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Istelathis

[Love Zhaoying]

Of course, working against the whole "instancing" idea is, it does not help with "being more social".

Anyway, I hope I don't get us stuck on one "set of suggestions".  Trying to keep this thread as broad as possible!

But go for it! 

[benchthis]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Idea: While the "instancing" used in Sansar wasn't anything like the "always up" we get in Second Life, perhaps "instancing" (only "up/online when in use") would be something for "New user free homes"?  No Grid space taken up. Few resources used.

Or a "sub-sub-Premium" tier.

I think for new users the SL16B New Linden Home exhibit would be great way to experiement with instancing. Such a cute build with the house boats near the traditional homes near the cute little camping area w the water tower. New users could get a free house boat instance, a free traditional instance, and a free camper instance At The Same Time. This could be a new free instance area, when the free users wish for more space they can go premium and have access to more instances. Multiple instances can be claimed. Why not. And that funky little educational sandbox thing I did early could be in there somewhere so when people are outside of the instance socializing with their instance neighbors they can teach each other and visit each others instance (if premium) new users will not be allowed to have instance visitors. Hmm. 

Wait I can have a traditional, a houseboat, a fantasy home, a chalet, a camper, a log home, a modern home, a sakura home, a victorian and every future theme'd home at the same time? AND I can pick exactly where I want to live? Even if the exact locations are taken?? That would be a solution.

To be extra mental. 

And my avatar can automatically change to the appearance assigned to each instance! OMG I'm telling my 200,000 friends. 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by benchthis

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Idea: While the "instancing" used in Sansar wasn't anything like the "always up" we get in Second Life, perhaps "instancing" (only "up/online when in use") would be something for "New user free homes"?  No Grid space taken up. Few resources used.

Or a "sub-sub-Premium" tier.

 

Maybe it could help get rid of abandoned alts if everyone starts with a free home.  Not a great free home, just a starter free home one picks and then receives notecards and how to teleport to a main newbie friendly open sim.  I wonder if this could help rid the bot situation from becoming overwhelming in the AI years to come when AI could start to be overkill.  Of course, there would have to be a way to send the abandoned alt home.  Perhaps that just happens when we log off, we go home.

Edited February 13, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[animats]

2 hours ago, benchthis said:

If there were a way for SL to use the open source code for advanced building in SL

There's a generic problem with open source graphics programs. The user interfaces are awful. There's no vision or coherence of design. This comes from open source project organization, which tends to be loosely coordinated. Open source graphics programs tend to be a collection of features in search of a design architecture. From GIMP to FreeCAD to KiCAD, they're all hard to use. It took two decades for Blender to get a decent user experience, and it still suffers from "where did that menu go" and "why can't I see that any more?".

Something like a clothing design program has to be *designed*, with a coherent vision. It won't emerge from ongoing hacking.

[benchthis]

6 hours ago, animats said:

Something like a clothing design program has to be *designed*, with a coherent vision. It won't emerge from ongoing hacking.

I'm all for proprietary designs. This is disney and gamelofts in game clothing designer. It's pretty epic. 

I like the theme of SL's raw true 3D building style and with little blender magic mixed in as far as building models and sculpting would epic. I'm pretty sure the app Nomad uses Blender code; the mesh sculpting system seems very similar. 

I'm all for making things as simple to understand as possible. Blender was a pain to learn and continues to be. 

Here's the video: 

 

 

[Orwar]

10 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Honestly, I don't think there is a younger crowd for SL anymore..Not a big enough of one anyways..Not with how user unfriendly SL is.. Younger people just aren't in the same world that a lot of us were where you had to dive in deep on programs.

   I disagree. Quite strongly, in fact. For a long while I was used to always being the youngest person around, I first got into SL when I was 20 - but the past two-three years I've noticed how many people there are that make me feel old; a lot of parties and private hangouts I've attended the average age of the users has been around 24, and it's not rare that I'm now the oldest person in the room. Friend circles of young SLers tend to heavily rely on Discord to communicate in between in-world gatherings - something it frequently appears elderly forumites refuse to partake in.

   But there absolutely seems to be a separation between the older users and the younger users (which might to some extent explain why oldbies are whining about how SL is asocial and dying whilst the usually dozens of new avatars I interact with daily makes that sentiment patently untrue) - if I were to randomly pick older and younger people from my contact list and try introducing them it would feel like pitting a racing turtle against a fighting-- male-hen. As something of an inbetweener I find both ends of the spectrum both relatable and totally incomprehensible. It works, but give it another half decade and I think I might be quite done hanging out with people in their early 20's. 

   That's all obviously generalisations, but I'm pretty sure I had a much easier time when I was 20 making friends with people who were in their 50's, than people in their 20's today have making friends with people in their 50's today - things have changed fast, most people born after around '95 are downright peculiar after a childhood without cassette tapes and dial-ups. In my days, if you wanted to be a nerd and go online you had to simultaneously have the capacity to assert dominance over your siblings and ensure they wouldn't dare pick up the telephone whilst you were reading digital comic strips at an average rate of a page a minute! And putting an entire video game on one disc? Sorcery. If you didn't have to swap floppy discs every now and then as you made it through the levels, you just weren't any good at the games. If you never got mauled by a yeti in SkiFree you didn't have a proper 90's childhood! 

[benchthis]

7 hours ago, animats said:

Something like a clothing design program has to be *designed*, with a coherent vision. It won't emerge from ongoing hacking.

Here's another good video showing more of the power of their mesh clothing editor. Can also see how they are using PBR as well here and there. 

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Orwar said:

male-hen

*whispers* rooster

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Orwar said:

Friend circles of young SLers tend to heavily rely on Discord to communicate in between in-world gatherings - something it frequently appears elderly forumites refuse to partake in.

I was on Discord for awhile but I was juggling about eight things at that time and some thing had to give so I let it and other things go.  For me, Discord was just another bunch of stuff to read but it was nice people without a lot of mudslinging like what goes on on Twitter for example.  I don't think it had anything to do with my age.  I gave up Twitter too.  It got old.  I had Discord and Twitter burnout after awhile.  I'd rather be involved with building and music when not visiting events in SL. 

The asocial issue is a bit true in that I have been invited to some human clubs thru our Dinkie and Tiny group and it was a lot of couple bots dancing and not fun.  I don't like the bots much as they are kind of scary (lol).  Plus, it made me sad that the person putting on the event didn't have very many people show up.  But, getting main groups together either for a theme or an activity is a good way to find some real people.  Discord is a good idea for that.  Others should consider it.  

[Marianne Little]

I have not read all, but I read to the suggestion of games.

I remember camping fondly. I got 1 or 2 L, and ran off to buy a dollarbie. A token, hmm, why not have both? Tasks to perform for 1 L here, tasks to perform for a token there? It was camping chairs for hair too, and that was popular.

But anyways, it was social too. I had to sit there, and it was more natural to chat with the other avatars who sat there. Talk about what we would do with the money, where the best camping chairs are, and so on. What I call "light" socialization.

Tasks to perform would be the modern version of camping. Instead of sitting, go ahead and learn about SL, and meet new people who are there to do the task too.

It could be "level up" tasks. So the more complicated rewarded 5 L instead of one. For tokens, I think holdable pets, teddy bears, phones, sunglasses and watches could be something people want.

Will it really be possible to earn enough to cash out or something? It could be a cap on it. When you reach the 24 hour limit, you had to wait.

[Ceka Cianci]

10 hours ago, Orwar said:

   I disagree. Quite strongly, in fact. For a long while I was used to always being the youngest person around, I first got into SL when I was 20 - but the past two-three years I've noticed how many people there are that make me feel old; a lot of parties and private hangouts I've attended the average age of the users has been around 24, and it's not rare that I'm now the oldest person in the room. Friend circles of young SLers tend to heavily rely on Discord to communicate in between in-world gatherings - something it frequently appears elderly forumites refuse to partake in.

   But there absolutely seems to be a separation between the older users and the younger users (which might to some extent explain why oldbies are whining about how SL is asocial and dying whilst the usually dozens of new avatars I interact with daily makes that sentiment patently untrue) - if I were to randomly pick older and younger people from my contact list and try introducing them it would feel like pitting a racing turtle against a fighting-- male-hen. As something of an inbetweener I find both ends of the spectrum both relatable and totally incomprehensible. It works, but give it another half decade and I think I might be quite done hanging out with people in their early 20's. 

   That's all obviously generalisations, but I'm pretty sure I had a much easier time when I was 20 making friends with people who were in their 50's, than people in their 20's today have making friends with people in their 50's today - things have changed fast, most people born after around '95 are downright peculiar after a childhood without cassette tapes and dial-ups. In my days, if you wanted to be a nerd and go online you had to simultaneously have the capacity to assert dominance over your siblings and ensure they wouldn't dare pick up the telephone whilst you were reading digital comic strips at an average rate of a page a minute! And putting an entire video game on one disc? Sorcery. If you didn't have to swap floppy discs every now and then as you made it through the levels, you just weren't any good at the games. If you never got mauled by a yeti in SkiFree you didn't have a proper 90's childhood! 

I was young when I came in myself and it was all mostly older people that I was meeting.. At the time it was mostly people in their 30's that I was around all the time..I'm not in my 50's or in my 40's..I'm in the age range of the people I was meeting when I first got here.. I meet young people in here and elsewhere online, plus am around a lot of them in RL as well.. My life isn't empty of younger people or older.. I'm kinda stuck in the middle hehehe

Aaaaanyways,

I didn't say their wasn't younger people because there is, Just not enough of them.. We don't get the influx boosts we used to get.. Our logins today are pretty much around the same 30k area as always and stay pretty consistent with that. We don't get the 50k and 80k influxes anymore that helped boost the population. We wouldn't keep the whole  but the numbers would go up..

Just look at recent events over the holidays, where logins should have been way up. Did anyone see our numbers shoot up?

The world is nowhere near as populated now and it's not getting refreshed like it needs with younger people, especially if you add how many of the 30k is bots and alts logged in at the same time as their mains.. Our numbers are buffed up and hiding what they really are. The truth of those numbers is probably pretty scary.

We either have a lot of older people quitting and new younger ones replacing them or we haven't really moved the dial much at all, other than it moving downward. Because if we were seeing the increase, our logins would be going up, our region numbers would be going up, as well as the world would not be as empty as it really is.. Instead those are moving the other direction.

The last boost of any kind that SL had and it's kind of sad to say, was when the virus hit. It took a world shutdown to get the numbers to go up..They didn't even go up that much then..

Do we get young people,ya.. Just not the numbers we are gonna need for the future to refresh those leaving.. We lose a lot of people at the front door and after recently going through the start area myself, it's not too hard to see why.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Conversely, as "older people" get to a certain age who haven't heard about Second Life yet, they can greatly benefit from it to! 

For all the same reasons and more as "young people".  So, "olders" could "age into" second life just like we hope "youngers" would.

So, if I were to suggest "how to attract older users": I think the "social" aspects of the OP apply a lot.  As do all the "creative" aspects, too. "We" (older people like me) get to "relive our youth", experience things we missed out on, be creative in ways we never could in RL / FL, live out lifelong fantasies, etc.

Anyway..back on topic: I suggest that if there were "age group specific" targeted marketing, for all age groups, that could be helpful.

[EliseAnne85]

After we had an issue with bots, I searched how to write a good privacy policy and came upon some interesting articles to read.  These were helpful how-to articles for people wanting to start a website, for instance.  What I found the most helpful were the suggestions to keep your TOS and privacy policy simple and forward, and most interestingly enough - get rid of the legalese.  

With many countries now wanting to understand and protect their right to privacy, I think it's important for all websites writing policies to consider getting rid of the legalese and just write the policies out more straight forward.

To give an example, LL could write:  LL will not be held responsible for any real life information you personally share about yourself whether by text, local chat, or voice (fill in the tools that need to go here) when you are using our services.  You are solely responsible for any and all private information you share.  LL does not share your personal information with anyone.

The above is just an example but I think all websites should start looking to the future of our modern world and make TOS and privacy policies simple to read and understand; but, most importantly, get rid of the legalese.  

I think this helps user usability and I'm just throwing it out there.  But, it's an important thing to consider, especially websites dropping the legalese.

Edited February 14, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[EliseAnne85]

@Klytyna you laugh now, but just go laugh trying to read the Tilia TOS.  Oh my gah about the Tilia TOS is all I have to say about that one!  Translation for that Tilia TOS, "you agree we have completely covered our butt, now check or don't check."  

[Love Zhaoying]

More "games for the sake of games" in Second Life is one of my personal goals..

With the understanding that Second Life itself is not a game, of course.

Whether that increases retention or just gives people "something to do", I gots no clue.

 

[Marianne Little]

I am thinking that SL expect too much if new people shall open the browser besides SL, search for a Youtube Channel, search on Wiki et cetera.

That's why I loved the idea of a build tool in the toolbar, that comes up with suggestions for sandboxes. as suggested here:

Or inworld, click on the "learn to build" board. Click it to get a basic instruction video, not too long! Show "this is your build tool" and the pure basics. Then slurls to suggested sandboxes. These could go in a loop, so not all newbies ended up on the same spot.

 

In addition to the welcome areas information boards, people should have their own information board. An additional button in the toolbar brings up the learning library. Let us say our newbie teleports to a sandbox, but need to watch the video of basic building again. They click the button for learning, and get up a set of icons they can click and the "build" icon takes them to the instruction video they watched before.

One task to complete should be customize your profile. A video show you how to do it. Included are 3 snapshots for free, so they can put in a picture. Three, so they do not have to get it right on first try.

[Orwar]

6 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Do we get young people,ya.. Just not the numbers we are gonna need for the future to refresh those leaving.. We lose a lot of people at the front door and after recently going through the start area myself, it's not too hard to see why.

   People keep saying that, and I don't disagree - but as far as I can recall we've received no indication of what LL's official viewpoint on the issue is, or if they even consider it an issue.

   I just don't see why it should be on the shoulders of the users to worry about whether we've got 40,000 or 50,000 users at any given time (btw it's closer to 40,000 than 30,000 - right now there's 42,298), if LL doesn't. We don't know exactly how many new users sign up, log in, and never log back in again, or drop off after a few days or weeks - LL can monitor that, we can't; and whilst I don't believe LL are infallible I'm going to have to assume that they have a better understanding than us of what the platform's needs for its long-term health will be.

   If it was something as simple as making a new new user experience, knocking up a few good-looking regions with a good navigational course to walk new users through would cost them very little in terms of time and effort - heck, they could just as well just throw that stuff in to the Belli community regions that are otherwise pretty much unused (although those living right next to them mightn't want newbies wandering into their kitchens, so perhaps not?). They look amazing - and I don't want to downplay the hard work the LDPW put into them, but if they can do that just to dot the landscape with pretty things that has a handful of visitors daily that look around, but get bored of how dead it is and move along, it wouldn't be too farfetched that putting the expansion of Belliseria (which I'd consider another indicator of how well SL is doing) on hold for a moment to put something together.

   Or is it one of those things that it doesn't matter how much we shout and scream about because LL won't budge a millimetre unless it's formally proposed to them in the form of one of those magical JIRA thingies? Forumites have brought it up so many times over the past couple of years that it seems silly if that was the why. 

[Rowan Amore]

6 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

To give an example, LL could write:  LL will not be held responsible for any real life information you personally share about yourself whether by text, local chat, or voice (fill in the tools that need to go here) when you are using our services.  You are solely responsible for any and all private information you share.  LL does not share your personal information with anyone.

That's pretty much what it already says in their Privacy Policy...Honestly, it's not that full of legalese, IMO.  

While we endeavour at all times to protect the privacy of our users and to ensure no harm is caused through our Services, given the nature of the tools, we have no obligation to keep private any information you made available to other users or the public using these functions. 

Any information, content or communications, including personal information, you provide when you use any of these features will be available to the recipients (dependent on the nature of the tool) and may be publicly posted and otherwise disclosed without limitation as to its use by us or by a third party.